I like to grind my own hamburger meat using the meat grinder attachment. I purchase a Chuck Meat, cube it into 1" cubes, and then grind it in the mixer.

I started with the ~525 watt Kitchen-Aid. All went well for the first few grindings. Somewhere around the 15th episode, I heard a VERY loud noise that told me that one of the gears had jumped a tooth. The mixer still worked, and I was able to finish my grind of ~5 pounds of meat. But, during the episode, I heard this noise many times, which told me that not only had a gear jumped a tooth, but probably lost a tooth as well. So, this mixer became a light duty mixer, religated to making Toll-House Cookies.

Wanting to return to grinding HB meat again, (it really IS superior, and YOU control the hygine, not the meat packer!) I stumbled onto the Cuisinart, 1000 watts. The Cuisinart had a nice warranty too, I think around 3 years, unconditional. Somewhere in the literature I read that it had METAL and not Plastic gears in it's gear housing.

Bought it. Bought the grinder attachment (much more that the KA grinder attachment in cost). Started making HB meat again. This Cusinart stand mixer simply LAUGHS at everything I throw at it: Grinds meat quickly, mixes big bread dough batchs quickly, and not too bad at the Toll-House Cookies too. (If you do your mes en place for the cookies, you can have dough ready for the oven IN 5 MINUTES!)